BY HANK REICHMAN The late UC Berkeley Chancellor Clark Kerr once famously quipped that “the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni and parking for the faculty.” Only the last of these, he suggested, presented a problem. Another related saying attributed to him was his description…
BY HANK REICHMAN At their spring meeting May 10, the 22 members of the Board of Governors of the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges (FACCC) took a unanimous vote of no confidence in the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. It was only the second such vote in the organization’s 66-year history, the last…
BY JOHN K. WILSON One of the strongest arguments for free speech and against allowing speakers to be shouted down speakers was made on May 5, 2019 by a group of 15 white supremacist Holocaust deniers in Russellville, Arkansas. Billy Roper, who runs the racist ShieldWall Network, led the group who disrupted a March of…
BY EVA SWIDLER Although the media frenzy is already fading, public attention this spring was recently focused yet again in deeply unflattering ways on higher education as admissions scandals rocked elite universities in the US. Predictably, observers noted that, problematic though it might be to nakedly buy one’s way into competitive institutions with cash payments,…
BY STEVEN VICKERS Twenty visits to a doctor, thirty-two tests or screenings, six doctors, and countless pills: this is my new reality. In the summer of 2018, I began feeling flushed and nauseated. I would wake at 3am and run to the toilet to empty the contents of my stomach. I would go purchase diapers…
BY BETHANY LETIECQ, SAMANTHA PARSONS, AND GUS THOMSON We did it! We organized. We educated. We advocated. And with student activism, solidarity, and a collaborative spirit, we collectively achieved a huge victory for transparency at George Mason University (GMU). Last week, Provost Wu announced at our GMU Faculty Senate meeting that we will institute a…
POSTED BY KELLY HAND The new issue of Academe highlights the power of faculty to build strength on their campuses by organizing through AAUP advocacy and collective bargaining chapters. Articles focus on presidential searches, private donor influence, adjunct faculty activism, risks of gun violence, retirement, and other topics. Follow the links in the table of contents…
BY HANK REICHMAN Earlier this week I discussed The Future of Academic Freedom with Patricia Raskin, host of the Internet radio show “Positive Living” on voiceamerica.com. To listen to this interesting conversation go to https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/114836/fiona-citkin-how-they-made-it-henry-reichman-academic-freedom/57810 You can also listen to the discussion as a podcast on iTunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/henry-reichman-academic-freedom/id421428770?i=1000437359914
BY GWENDOLYN BRADLEY The AAUP has released the Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2018–19. This year’s report provides an overview of the results of the 2018–19 AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey, which compiled data on more than 380,000 full-time faculty members at 952 colleges and universities, as well as improved data on pay…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” This adage, or some version of it, is widely attributed to Benjamin Franklin or Winston Churchill or 1970s self-help author Alan Lakein. Regardless of origin, the wisdom is applicable to many U.S. colleges and universities today. As institutions continue to face uphill challenges in their…